At daybreak on the morning of the 18th of December I found that between three and four inches of snow had fallen during the night. It had ceased snowing at that time; and during the day, which was stormy and often very cloudy, no more fell. There was a good deal of thaw during the day, and towards evening the snow, except in sheltered spots, was nearly melted. My day's journey was about ten miles, to the village of Hardas, on the left bank of the Dras river; passing about two miles before the end of the march the river of Kargyl or Pashkyum, a very large stream which descends from the south-east. During the earlier part of this day, the road was extremely bad. It descended from Ulding abruptly to the level of the Dras river, to cross at its point of junction a large tributary whose source is in the eastern slopes of Deotsu. A succession of steep ascents and descents followed for four or five miles, throughout which distance the ravine through which the river ran was narrow and precipitous and quite without villages. Further up, the valley widened a little, the mountains rose less steeply, and left narrow strips of level ground along the margin of the stream.
[Sidenote: SNOW STORM. _December, 1847._]
Very early on the morning of the 11th of December, it began again to snow, and continued with little intermission throughout the day. I marched ten miles to Karbu, crossing the river three miles above Hardas, and keeping on the right bank during the remainder of the day. I could see that the valley was wider than the day before, but the incessant snow made the appearance of the country undistinguishable. The margins of the stream were occasionally fringed with bushes of poplar and willow. Karbu is a village high up a steep lateral valley, with scattered groves of juniper on the sides of the hills above the cultivation. By evening the depth of snow was about fifteen inches.
On the 12th of December, after marching five miles through a heavy fall of snow to the village of Tashgang, crossing the river by a wooden bridge close to the village, a violent storm of wind and snow-drift, blowing directly down the valley, compelled me to halt for the night. The snow-storm continued till about eight P.M., when the weather cleared, and the night was clear and starlight. Next morning, the weather continuing fine, I was able to proceed to Dras. The depth of snow had increased to about two feet; and the labour of progressing through this depth of untrodden snow was much increased by the shortness of the steps of the porters, treading exactly after one another, so as to form pits in the snow, not more than a foot apart, and alternately on the right and left.